Sunday, October 18, 2009

Imaginary

I missed the mathematics class at the start of year 12 when they did imaginary numbers.  When I turned up next time I had no idea what was going on.  "i is the square root of -1??  What the hell are you talking about?"  With a bit of catch-up work I was happy with the idea though, and of course i turned out to be incredibly useful throughout the electrical engineering degree that I never actually used (though they called it j).

Here are some useful new proposals for imaginary things:

The imaginary colour lupp. Lupp is the colour which, when mixed in equal proportions with white, makes black.

The imaginary word chamej.  Chamej is the word for the word which is spelled "K-L-A-B-B-Y" forwards and "M-O-M-I-O" sideways.

The imaginary emotion hruffaby.  Hruffaby is the emotion elicited when you realize that you are about to suffer an attack of retrograde amnesia.  It is more easily observed than experienced.

The imaginary country Tangeria.  Tangeria is the only former Russian republic that borders both Spain and Uganda.  Its flag is a red star on a lupp background and its principal export is principles.

The imaginary number seblen.  Seblen is usually less than four, and can be divided into two equal halves: nine and twelve.

It would be nice if you could provide feedback on how useful these words have been in your day-to-day life.  I reckon I'll probably get about seblen comments about this post.  And that will make me feel pretty darned hruffaby.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

your blog always makes me smile.
thanks!

PTR said...

Thank you! I think that's the nicest comment anyone has ever left!

Anonymous said...

Your blog always makes me shake me head wryly. Is that the second nicest comment?

How about: your blog remind me of those biscuits that have crimped edges and are sprinkled with sugar. Is that the nice-est thing anyone has ever said

PTR said...

I hope you Arnott making terrible puns on my blog.